22. The Surprise of Love

Tuesday 12th March 

(for more details see here)

Pause:

Lord of Creation,
create in us a new rhythm of life
composed of hours that sustain rather than stress,
of days that deliver rather than destroy,
of time that tickles rather than tackles.

Lord of Liberation,
by the rhythm of Your truth, set us free
from the bondage and baggage that breaks us,
from the Pharaohs and fellows who fail us,
from the plans and pursuits that prey upon us.

Lord of Resurrection,
may we be raised into rhythms of Your new life,
dead to deceitful calendars,
dead to fleeting friend requests,
dead to the empty peace of our accomplishments.

To our packed-full planners, we bid, "Peace!"
To our over-caffeinated consciences, we say, "Cease!"
To our suffocating selves, Lord, grant us release.

Drowning in a sea of deadlines and death chimes,
we rest in You, our lifeline.

By your ever-restful grace,
allow us to enter Your Sabbath rest
as Your Sabbath rest enters into us.

In the name of our Creator,
our Liberator,
our Resurrection and Life,
we pray.
Amen
 

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
(Shane Claiborne and  Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.) 

Today's reading: John 18. 10-11

Reflection: The Surprise of Love.

At our Bethel Book Club we are exploring a book called: Every Breath We Take by author Terry Wardle. 
(for more on this see our three part podcast with him: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

He has a chapter called: Recieve My Love, in which he shares:

Why is it so difficult for Christians to know the love of God in their lives? By know, I do not mean understand. Most believers understand that God is love and that he cares for them. But that understanding is conceptual - an intellectual fact based on what they have read in Scripture or what they have been told by pastors and teachers. I am talking about a level of knowing that is reflective of the Greek word Paul uses repeatedly, epiginosko. It is a knowing that is conceptual, but goes far deeper. It is knowledge that is integrated into the way a person responds to life. This type of knowing includes more than understanding. It is about experiencing something personally, experientially. It is a level of knowing that leads to deep transformation.

Back to the basic question. Why is it so difficult for many Christians to know, in a deep and experiential way, the love of God? The fact that people have difficulty with this is unquestionable. It may not be revealed in a Bible study or theology class, but talk to people personally- particularly when they are struggling - and it becomes quite clear. Many believers are not able to rest in the love of God. They find it difficult to rest in the promise of His tender care. They are worried about the past, anxious about the future, and hypervigilant in attempts to meet the deep core longings of their lives through performance and people pleasing. They can talk about the love of God, point to Scripture verses that speak of the love of God, even witness to others about the transforming power of God's love. But when it comes to the way they live their lives, connecting to God's love in a personal, intimate way is not their experience.

This was a problem in my own Christian life. I have taught believers that their identity needs to be secure in Christ. I define identity as "that which gives you your place at the table, identifying you as loved, acceptable, significant, and secure?" I say over and over again, "Never place your identity in anything you can lose. The world encourages people to place their identity in money, degrees, relationships, titles, jobs, appearance, fame... on and on it goes. Every one of these is at constant risk, and thus a poor place to anchor identity. With Christians, identity should be based on only one thing: the fact that you are a child of God, the one thing a Christian can never lose.

Central to this idea of Christian identity are three words; loved, chosen, and empowered. As mentioned in a previous chapter, because of Christ we are securely connected to the Father as his adopted children. Whether good day or bad, walking in victory or struggling with sin, God's children can be secure that God loves them, chooses them, and gives them his power through the Holy Spirit. In fact, we are loved long before we are lovable, chosen before we are acceptable, and empowered before we are responsible. That is the nature of God's generous grace poured out on his children.

Even though I know this to be biblical and true, to what degree is this real in my own life? When it comes to being chosen, I know that at a deep level. I have experienced God calling me to His service, and the evidence has confirmed that to me. I also have experienced His empowerment through deep touches and anointing of the Holy Spirit. I have felt His presence and seen the effect in my life. Once again, I am secure in that truth. But what about God's love? That has been a place of struggle and difficulty for me. Not theologically, but personally. To be blunt, I have not been so sure or secure. Living with an anxiety disorder I is only one of many evidences that can prove my point. have for years, even when my life and ministry appeared quite successful, been quite unsure as to the Father's love. Not does He love, but does He love me?

My struggle is not unique. Many Christians face the same battle and it leads them, like it did me, to wrestle with feelings of anxiety and insecurity. They are exhausted, wearing themselves out in performance and people pleasing. Deep within, there is a fundamental message that they need to strive to be more, do more, achieve more, and have more. With that comes great fear. If anyone really knew them, they would be rejected as undesirable and unlovable. I am not talking about non-Christians. This is a reality for many men and women who follow Christ. They simply do not know the depth of God's motherly non-comparing love. Why?

This problem does not lie with the Father, as though He has been withholding, stingy, or silent about his love. Far from it. As soon as the Fall occurred, God began pursuing broken people in order to transform them with his love. Whether Scripture portrays God as the lover who chases after the beloved in Song of Solomon, or the forgiving husband in Hosea who has every reason to punish his bride, but instead is filled with tenderness and compassion, the Bible is a story of God's relentless love. The psalms repeatedly speak of the Father's love, assuring us that his love will endure forever.

The greatest testimony of God's matchless love comes to us through the incarnation, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. As the Bible simply yet profoundly proclaims, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (John 3:16). The metaphors of the Father's love in the New Testament are richly descriptive of passionate, pursuing, unconditional love: the shepherd seeking lost sheep and laying down his life, the woman relentlessly searching the house for one lost coin, a heart- broken father running down the road to embrace a way- ward child, a mother hen gathering her chicks beneath her wings. As Scripture says, God's love is lavish (1 John 3:1). It has also been costly to express. It is God's love that caused Jesus to travel the universe to connect us with the

Father. Love caused Jesus to set aside His glory to become human, and it was love, not nails, that held Him to the cross.
There is no ambiguity here. God is passionately in love with you, and this love has not been communicated with mere words, but with a relentless pursuit of your heart. The Father is determined to be reunited with His child. He longs to be the source of your security, acceptance, significance, and purpose. He loves you with an everlasting and indescribable love, and He has expressed this love in the most costly way possible.

God didn't send us a holy book or commission an angel to die for us. We were worth more than this to God. While we were yet sinners, Christ - who is God Himself! - died for us (Rom. 5:6-8). God took on our humanity, our sin, and the just punishment sin deserves, dying a God-forsaken, hellish death on a cross, because only this could rescue us from our self-chosen destruction. God expresses unsurpassable love for us and ascribes unsurpassable worth to us by sacrificing the One who has unsurpassable value on our behalf! And this unfathomable expression of love to us displays the perfect love that the three divine persons have for one another. God is toward us as He eternally is within Himself: God is love.

GREGORY A. BOYD (Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgement to the Love of God) 

God's love has no equal. Even the most carefully constructed explanation or metaphor fails to adequately describe "how wide and long and high and deep is the love" God extends to us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 3:18). Simply stated, His love will take your breath away.

Yet the question remains. Why, given the character, nature, and expressions of the Father's love, do so many Christians have difficulty resting in that love? I asked that question to a small group that meets in our home. These fifteen men and women are deeply committed Christians, most of them in highly demanding professions, who asked my wife Cheryl and me to mentor them. They are about twenty years younger that we, which places most of them in their mid-forties. They come because they want more of Jesus, and we meet with them because our hearts are burning for the same.

Their answers to the question about struggling with the love of God were honest and rich and easily fit within four main causes.

• An intellectual approach to faith
• A distorted view of the gospel of Christ
• Emotional wounds that leave us suspicious of love
• Eyes wide shut to love notes from God

Question for today:

• Lord Jesus, what is keeping me from fully experiencing more of Your love?

Prayer:

Such love, pure as the whitest snow
Such love, weeps for the shame I know
Such love, paying the debt I owe
O Jesus, such love

Such love, stilling my restlessness
Such love, filling my emptiness
Such love, showing me holiness
O Jesus, such love

Such love, springs from eternity
Such love, streaming through history
Such love, fountain of life to me
O Jesus, such love

GRAHAM KENDRICK

 I prayed this.

My prayer for today: (if you would like to, please feel free to add your own prayer here):